


Honey and Pitch

by paraparadigm



Category: Baldur's Gate
Genre: Angst and Feels, Antagonistic Relationship, Dark elements, Enemies to Lovers, Eventual Smut, F/M, Medium Burn, Morally Ambiguous Character, Multi, Rivalry, Slow Romance, Spoilers, author is highly ambivalent about vampires, free-form
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-28
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:54:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 17,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27757990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paraparadigm/pseuds/paraparadigm
Summary: “You try that sort of shite ever again, Astarion,” Lledryl hisses, “and I’ll rip those fangs out and wear them for a necklace.”For the tiniest of moments he has the decency to look contrite, but it doesn’t last. Of course, it doesn’t last. He wipes the guilt off his face in favor of a saucy little head shake and that habitual come-hither smirk of his: eyes hooded, lips hitched just so, head ever so slightly inclined to the side. The Works.“So violent,” he trails. “Is it your Drow heritage, I wonder?” Then, he adds, with just a hint of a purr, “if you want my fangs on your neck once more, my dear, you have but to ask.”
Relationships: Astarion/Female Charname (Baldur's Gate), Other Relationship Tags to Be Added
Comments: 80
Kudos: 150





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> "In a barrel of pitch, a spoon-full of honey."
> 
> — Russian proverb.
> 
> In addition to the usual content warnings that come with the game and D&D lore (I'll spare you the laundry list, but physical and psychological horror are probably the most relevant ones for this fic), lovely readers, in the interest of preempting any potential surprises, I write Astarion as (hopefully) complex, but very much in line with how the BG games present vampires. If you're here for the swoon and the feels, this fic takes the approach that the bloodsucker in question is (a) canonically evil-aligned as per D&D lore; (b) technically as dead as a rusty doornail; (c) way too easy to romance compared to the others. Please do not expect him to melt into a puddle of smitten morally course-corrected putty under the influence of the 'good woman' trope, we're not going down that road. This is going to be an angsty dumpster fire. They'll be working their way from extremely low mutual approval. 
> 
> The tag is likely to change to E at some point, read accordingly.

“You try that sort of shite ever again, Astarion,” Lledryl hisses, “and I’ll rip those fangs out and wear them for a necklace.”

For the tiniest of moments he has the decency to look contrite, but it doesn’t last. Of course, it doesn’t last. He wipes the guilt off his face in favor of a saucy little head shake and that habitual come-hither smirk of his: eyes hooded, lips hitched just so, head ever so slightly inclined to the side. The Works. 

“So _violent_ ,” he trails. “Is it your Drow heritage, I wonder?” Then, he adds, with just a hint of a purr, “if you want my fangs on your neck once more, my dear, you have but to ask.”

Lledryl feels her nails digging into her palms, but she forces her fingers to uncurl and straightens to her full height—which is still half a head shorter than the vapid fuck. He’s faster, has better reflexes with the same bag of tricks—except that she fights dirtier. When it’s all said and done, he’s got a squeamish side, fussy rituals to her crass survivalism. Perhaps this is why he’s been flaunting it, ever since his nasty little secret came out. He’s lethal in battle, she’ll give him that—and that’s all well and good, of course. Whatever gives them an edge. You don’t toss a perfectly serviceable shiv just because you don’t like how it curves. 

Except...

The rage howling through her jolts the slumbering tadpole awake and it tugs on their connection, the insinuating little rush of sudden, unearned confidence, like when you hit a streak at cards, or spot a fat mark, or when the silver inlay fits easy and smooth, each loop and scrawl and swirl perfectly placed as if the gods themselves are watching. It promises the usual, and for a moment she almost gives in, not so much for the temptation but out of bitter spite. _It would only be fair game, wouldn’t it? He stepped over the line first._

She wrestles the impulse down until it subsidies. If she’s going to muck around with the parasite again, it won’t be on _this_ shitbird’s account. That would…

Well. That would make her no better than him, and Lledryl has _standards._

They hadn’t exactly started off on the right foot, but she’d warmed up to the bastard over the few weeks of travel—her fault, really, she should have known better.

The bog stinks of sulphur and worse, fetid and cloying, and the hollow pang of homesickness catches her off-guard. She finds herself yearning for the harsh sunlight of Brynnlaw— seagulls and salt, briny wind, sharp white grins in sun-darkened faces, the scents of cinnamon and cloves and orange blossoms. 

Through the rank mist, she can spot Lae’zel stalking around, salvaging whatever shite is left after they wiped out the horde of multiplying mephits. For all she knows, the Githyanki is gutting them for ingredients, or perhaps for an evening snack. Gale wandered off to fiddle with the giant tree stump, and she catches snatches of his monologue—something about Shadow Druids. The wizard prefers a rapt ear, but he’s perfectly content to entertain himself with an audience of one, so he’ll keep. She’d rather do this out of earshot. In the heat of battle, none of the others noticed what the vampire had done, and she supposes it’s better to keep it that way. The rest is a blur, but this, she won’t forget any time soon—the sudden strike; the feral grin, teeth flashing red with recent blood—hers, not freely given; the perverse kiss he planted on the inside of her wrist by way of a thank-you, or shoddy apology. That knowing little smirk when she realizes he’d used her shock to snatch a glimpse of her recent dreams.

“We had a deal,” she says finally, ignoring the bloodsucker’s earlier taunt. “It shouldn’t be too intellectually taxing, even for you.” She has to clip her words to keep the fury in check. “You don’t go rummaging in people’s heads unless invited. You don’t feed on allies. That’s it. Two rules.” She pokes her finger at his chest. “You somehow managed to break _both_ in one fell swoop.”

His eyes narrow slightly, and Lledryl braces herself—everyone has tells, and this one she’s learned to recognize well enough, so she knows it for what it presages. In a moment, he’ll turn from unctuous to vicious, and then she can tell him to gather his belongings and go to the Nine Hells. She almost welcomes it.

Except, he’s been learning her tells too. He sidles up to her, fluid as a snake. “And which of these two terrible infractions are you more cross about, darling?” His tone is flippant, but his gaze is sharp as a dagger. “The one you indulge in yourself, or the one you find yourself enjoying?” He lets it sink in, but not long enough to find a retort. “As to the tadpole,” he adds, with a little mock flourish, “how else could I have checked whether you might consent? Did it not turn the fight in our favor? Should I have abstained? Unless, of course, you prefer for your companions to be hauled back to camp for our decomposing friend to resuscitate. I’m certain Mayrina would have parted with her wheelbarrow for such a worthy cause.”

He’s looming, his proximity uncomfortable, but she orders herself to stand her ground against wiser instincts. “You know what the difference between you and the goblins is, Astarion?” Somehow, she manages a conversational tone.

His eyebrow arches in quizzical amusement. “Aside from the obvious?”

She forces her jaw to unclench. “At least the goblins are evolved enough to cook their fucking food.”

For a moment, she’s sure he’ll lash out, and she readies herself, hands loose at her sides, the hilt of her dagger a familiar pressure against the inside of her uninjured wrist. At least he’d gone for her non-dominant hand. 

But, of course, they’re reaching into the same bag of tricks. He chuckles, low and honeyed. His eyes travel to her hip, to her weapon, and then back with deliberate slowness. 

“So, who is he, sweetness?” he asks. “The one who baits you in your dreams. You never said.”

She watches him for a trace of cruelty, but there is none—or else, it’s carefully buried. For a moment, he looks… Not sympathetic, no. It’s darker than that, and greedier. 

“It’s not that I meant to _pry_ , but it was right there.” He starts circling, but she gets in his way and stands her ground even when he comes too close. Surprise flashes across his features, but he smothers it quickly and takes a small step back. “Not even particularly attractive, from what I glimpsed.” His gaze grows sultry—and she can’t tell for the life of her how much of it is performance. “A terrible misalliance, in my humble opinion,” he purrs.

Lledryl crosses her arms. “Why would I tell you now?” 

“Because, while the rest of our misbegotten company dreams of rather pleasant things, our nocturnal visitors seem…” He gestures vaguely. “Less so. You might think that whoever is set on manipulating us would at least have the courtesy of impartial generosity.” The knowing half-smirk is back. “You and I just might be more alike than you think, darling.”

“You and I are _nothing_ alike, Toothy. Stay out of my head and keep your chompers to yourself—or I’ll make them into jewelry.” In Brynnlaw, threats like that are mostly bluster—the more preposterous the better. But she’s not grandstanding now. The parasite nudges her, flooding her mind with sickening approval.

“You won’t be the first to try.” He raises his hand, trails a finger down her neck. “I can’t help but notice that you are very _tense_. I’m certain we could find better uses for all that nervous energy.”

She barks a laugh, bitter and jagged, even though something in her stirs at his touch. He’s easy on the eyes, she’ll give him that. Until he opens his mouth, that is. “Do these cheap theatrics actually work on people?”

“You tell me,” he drawls. “But if it’ll settle the matter, next time, I’ll wait for you to _ask_.” He turns on his heel, deliberately giving her his back—another provocation—and saunters off into the mist.


	2. Chapter 2

Two days pass since the bog, and Lledryl manages to ward off sleep on both nights, making do with the tricks her father taught her when she was still too young to know any better, and he was around with any kind of regularity. The white-haired bastard, for all his faults, did have a proud parent streak to him—all that was his was the best, and that included Lledryl (albeit somewhat by accident), so he treated her as a full-blood, and firmly believed that any discrepancy could be trained out of her given enough self-discipline. Whatever she inherited from her mother would get the last word eventually—and if that didn’t sum up the relationship between her two progenitors, she doesn’t know what would. Try as she might, the need for sleep will ambush her, and then the dreams will come.

The vampire doesn’t sleep either, stalking off into the woods the second their camp quiets down. The others rest easier for his absence, but she’s not stupid enough to think that he’s making himself scarce on their account, or hers. As the horizon pales with an undecided dawn, he wanders back. Lledryl feigns a deep meditative state, but she tracks his movements from under her lowered eyelids, letting her ears fill in the picture when he disappears out of her line of vision. He spares her any attempt at conversation, and then Lae’zel is up, her sibilant grunts punctuating her daily training routine, and Lledryl gets started on the sorry excuse for porridge.

On the third night, the accumulated exhaustion swaddles her in fuzzy, sluggish inattention, and she resorts to pinching her forearm to avoid nodding off.

“Either you have a terribly stubborn streak, or your dreams are even more vile than mine.”

Lledryl starts, reaches for her dagger on pure instinct—slow, too slow, and it’ll only get worse the more her sleep debt accrues—and eyes the blooduscker. “What makes you think I need sleep?”

He bows, his hand on his heart. “Please, darling, you’re practically collapsing. Surely, all this nocturnal vigilance is not on _my_ account? I am beginning to think that you might be waiting up for me.”

Lledryl crosses her arms. The anger flares then subsides, shoaling on her exhaustion. The others are still asleep, and the last thing she wants is to be dragged into another exchange of barbs. The irritating gasbag lasted two days without trying to get a rise out of her, but, of course, here they are again. “How does it work?” she asks curtly, and motions with her chin. “Is it magic, or does the saliva have numbing properties?”

He cocks an eyebrow. “I beg your pardon?”

“When you bite, it has a numbing effect—temporary, lasted about an hour for me. Then the bite swells up and itches like a son of a bitch for a day or two. Since you’re a spawn, I’m guessing the full-fledged version is stronger. Is it a paralytic? And is it in the saliva, or something about the fangs?”

He blinks. “Those are oddly specific questions. Is there any reason for this particular line of inquiry?”

Lledryl grins, probably unpleasantly. “I’m thinking about how to better weaponize your little dietary problem.”

“Flattering as it is to realize that my mouth has been occupying your thoughts lately, I am afraid I will have to disappoint you.” He pauses, apparently considering his next words. “Vampire abilities are rooted in magic—it is nothing that can be so easily harvested. But if you must know, the numbing was elementary civility, after you so graciously offered your lovely neck. It is by no means an obligation—my master extended me no such courtesy, for instance.”

“You have control over how painful it is?”

He bares his teeth in something that might pass for a grin, on the carnivorous side of self-satisfied. “Entirely. Or how pleasurable—or so I’ve been told.” His eyes flash red in the semidarkness, refracting the glow of their dwindled campfire. “I would be delighted to demonstrate, if you wish, if only to quell your fascination.” 

She averts her gaze and tries her best to ignore the sudden lurch in her belly, all the more so because she’d be hard-pressed to categorize it. There is a healthy dose of aversion in there— and that will have to do, regardless of any other aspects she’d rather not scrutinize too closely.

“Let’s get one thing straight, Toothy. I don’t much like you.” On the other side of the camp, Shadowheart stirs in her sleep—a sudden jerk of her hips, her hand landing on her chest. Lledryl almost expects the tadpole to echo in sympathetic resonance, but it stays mercifully quiet. “But that’s neither here nor there. More importantly, I don’t trust you. You’re useful up to a point, but you’re a liability.”

“You wound me, darling! And here I thought we had something special.” He chuckles darkly and taps the side of his head. “As to liabilities, who among us isn’t one?” He stalks over and lowers himself to the edge of her bedroll, planting his ass in her personal space, but not too close that she might lash out. “Since we are being so candid with each other, rest assured that the feeling is mutual. You are perfectly appetizing, of course, but I have no confidence whatsoever that the erratic fumbling you seem to mistake for leadership won’t get us all killed, or conclude in us sprouting tentacles before we find the errant druid.” He turns, his pallid face in three-quarter profile leeching some color from the flames. “Who, precisely, were you, before all of this? Some petty cutpurse in Brynnlaw, cavorting with pirates and gods know what else? Or perhaps...” he purses his lips to hide the smirk and allows his eyes to roam over her “...a more salacious occupation? Not that I would _ever_ condemn such pursuits, but they hardly qualify one for making all the decisions, don’t you think?”

“Not that it’s any of your business,” Lledryl shrugs. She’ll be damned if she lets herself swallow the bait. “I was a jeweler.”

His burst of laughter is calculatedly charming. “What a delightful euphemism! By which you mean a counterfeiter, yes?”

“Better than a parasite.”

“Oh, this quip again,” he scowls. “You know, this obsession with my condition is becoming rather tedious.”

Lledryl smothers a caustic chuckle, swallows the grim satisfaction of watching her verbal trap spring shut, and smiles pleasantly. “No. That’s hardly an _occupation_. Didn’t you say you used to be a magistrate?”

“Yes, what of it?”

She shrugs. “My point exactly.”


	3. Chapter 3

He comes to her late one evening, dragging the shrieks of seagulls across her threshold, and Lledryl stares into his sun-beaten, wind-hardened face, trying to decide how much trouble he’ll be. He’s broad and solid, built to weather a gale, and all along the right side of his jaw scars criss-cross in copper spiderwebs. A burn, Lledryl decides, a decade old. His years sit on him well, dusting his temples with silver, where his hair is shorn short. The rest is gathered in an ashen plait—clean, and so is the rest of him, a trace of fastidiousness to the shine of his boots and the stiff starch of his shirt cuffs. But he walks in with the wide, rocky gait of someone who learned the sea before he learned the land. 

Never trust a man with a pretty face or a woman with a wealthy father, her mother likes to say. A bit abstract, as far as life advice is concerned—define pretty; define wealthy. This one looks like he used to be handsome once, and his eyes still are, the color of the ocean before the storm, lead-grey with an undertone of green, but the rest of him is eroded like a seaside cliff— pockmarked and weathered and obstinately permanent. 

“I hear you’re the lass to see about custom jewelry.” She can’t place his brogue, but it’s thick, a vaguely familiar, sing-songy patois she can’t quite match to a location. He doesn’t wait for an answer—just plops down in the deliberately uncomfortable visitor’s chair like it’s a cushioned throne, digs around in some inside pocket to produce a short clay pipe and waves it at her by way of query, though whether about the smoke or about the question, Lledryl doesn’t know. 

She shrugs. “Who’s asking?”

“You can call me Adir.” He packs the tobacco tight and lifts a candle from her desk to light up. “If it pleases.”

Lledryl crosses her arms and leans back in her chair. “Should it?”

He looks up, but his gaze doesn’t linger. “It just might.” He smiles then—mainland style, showing his teeth in an even row of ivory-yellow, untouched by scurvy. “With enough gold exchanged, I find that it usually does.” He fiddles with one of the unfinished bracelets on her desk—silver, not oxidized yet. She has yet to set the gemstones. He lifts her old bezel rocker and passes his thumb over the walnut handle. His touch is strangely gentle, like a caress. 

Lledryl tears her gaze away from his hands and scowls. “And what can I do for you for enough gold, Adir? Or whoever you are,” she adds, and holds his gaze when his eyes, creased with hidden laughter, meet hers.

“I saw one of your pieces in Baldur’s Gate last year. At least, I believe it was yours.” He releases the bezel rocker and brings his pipe to his lips. “That little tidbit of information cost me more coin and favors than I care to recall. Fortunate that the Duke’s late steward had a talkative streak when he was deep into his cups, or I might have never found you.”He doesn’t talk like an average seaman, Lledryl thinks. Too articulate, his cadence too measured. “Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen some plausible imitations over the years. But the duchess’s new diadem—your work, I believe—was so convincing that-” he leans in and grins, a devilish little glint in his eyes, “-it was stolen.”

Lledryl harrumphs, a bit reluctantly. She remembers working on the diadem, remembers her hunt for books and rumors that might reveal the original artifact’s history. She has always preferred to think of what she does as reconstruction, rather than forgery. “Did anyone get hurt?”

“Aside from the Duke’s pride? No. Besides, the thieves might have done his reputation a favor, all things being equal. Which brings me to the problem at hand.” He extracts a small folded note, and pushes it across the desk.

Despite her better judgement, Lledryl unfolds it, then closes it promptly.

“I can’t do that.” She says it flatly, leaving no room for argument before pushing the note back. 

His face hardens. “Money won’t be an obstacle.”

She shakes her head and gets up from her seat. Best be done with this, and quickly—of course, he turned out to be trouble. “That’s Eilistraee’s Boon. I won’t take that on, not for all the gold in Faerûn.” She motions to the door. “We’re finished here.”

But of course, they aren’t. He returns the next day, and the day after. He doesn’t broach the subject of the circlet again, but he commissions other pieces—simpler, less dangerous requests. They find themselves talking well into the evenings. His tales are full of impossible horizons, beautiful and terrible, and, slowly, he wears down her jaded shell until she is wide-eyed with wonder. 

When the winds turn, he sails to Baldur’s Gate, and Lledryl feels inexplicably bereft, a sense of loss she has no good name for. She makes herself forget about it.

Three months later, he darkens her threshold again. 

She takes him to her bed, with a strange sense of inevitability hanging over them, like it was just a matter of time, or fate, or some other gods-ordained hogwash. It changes something between them, igniting a hidden volatility beneath their respective shrewdness. He reveals little about his trade, and thus allows her to keep her own secrets, but they agree on little else. They fight like they fuck—no holds barred, clawing their way to each other through the brambles of a cultivated distance turned chronic. He still wants her to make the circlet, but won’t say why. She still refuses. She has other lovers, but none of them bring the winds of distant lands to whisper across her skin.

Until, one year, he doesn’t return.

 _“I’ve been searching for you.”_ The sound of his voice is like a stab between the ribs. _“You are always so far away.”_

She tries to wrestle down her mounting panic. She can tell a forgery when she sees one, even through the sticky trap of the dream, and the horrible irony of it loosens a broken cackle from her throat, but it’s not enough to puncture the illusion. Hope twists in her belly, and her body betrays her, responding to the ghostly fingers trailing over her hip with the eagerness of a bad habit. 

“Whatever you are, don’t use a dead man’s face,” she manages. 

Lips alight on her nape with gentle kisses, undemanding in a way Adir had never been. He’d always had a greedy side to him—wanting all of her, all at once. 

_“Let me in, beloved_ ,” the impostor whispers, and she could swear the parasite in her head flares up in protest, but it is no match for the raw need suddenly raking through her. A perverse little thought picks at her resolve, unraveling it thread by thread: something about hypocrisy, something about getting a taste of her own medicine, something about _just this once_.

She tries to squash it, but it is no use.

_Wake up, wake up, gods, let me-_

“Wake up!” 

She opens her eyes only to see the vampire looming over her, and she rolls out of his grasp with a strangled shriek, groping for her dagger.

“What in the Nine Hells are you doing?!”

He sits back on his haunches and cocks an eyebrow. “And here I thought you might appreciate a timely intervention.” His lips twitch. “I couldn’t help but notice that all those delightful little noises you were making in your sleep sounded... how do I put it? Somewhat more ambivalent than the rest of our ill-assembled crew. Was I wrong? Should I have left you to your nocturnal entertainment?”

Lledryl brings her arms around her knees and tries to breathe through her frantic heartbeat. “Next time, just poke me with a stick, or something, so I don’t stab you accidentally.” 

He chuckles, his tone dropping to a low purr. “Careful, darling. That might be misconstrued as an invitation.”

She makes a face. “Something tells me that you’d use a more bombastic metaphor if it came down to it, so let’s agree that there’s no misinterpretation.”

His teeth flash in the gloaming. “A metaphor? For sex?” He waves his hand. “Oh, I personally see no reason to bother, but, I suppose, as a concession to your delicate sensibilities, I could be pressed into a figure of speech. Or two.” 

Lledryl sighs. “No dreams on your end?” 

The vampire shrugs. “Not tonight. Or nothing as involved as yours, in any case. Perhaps our mysterious visitor is concentrating its efforts on the more susceptible targets among us?”

“Or maybe it doesn’t work the same on the undead.”

For once, he doesn’t bristle at the reminder. Instead, he looks oddly pensive. “Perhaps it doesn’t.”


	4. Chapter 4

Even with the warm breeze wafting through the gashes in the crumbling walls, the air is ripe with curdled blood and scattered viscera. Lledryl swallows bile and tries not to look too intently at what is left of the tiefling on the floor. It used to be female, she guesses, but there is no way to tell for sure, what with all the bits missing. 

They should’ve kept their heads down on their way back from the bog, but Wyll insisted that the ruin of the village might hold answers to his questions. Which questions, exactly, he failed to specify, but he went puppy-eyed with it and Lledryl shrugged and agreed, too exhausted to waste her breath on circular arguments. The gobbos had been friendly enough—deferential even, though it doesn’t take any particular brilliance to realize that humoring the tadpole is a mistake, like repaying a debt with someone else’s coin. No undoing it now, but she isn’t about to step into the same trap if it can be helped. 

The ogre in the center of the trio, an ugly shite-tinted bastard with a surprisingly affable if wily mug, halts his mates’ gastronomical discussion.

“Stranger: are you friend, or food?”

At her back, Wyll hisses something vaguely foul, but manages to hold his tongue beyond that. The githyanki surveys the proceedings with undisguised contempt and readjusts her grip on her spear. Even the vampire looks mildly nauseated before rearranging his features into an approximation of bored indifference, though for all she knows, he’s simply estimating how much blood was lost to the floorboards. 

Lledryl shrugs. “Timeless question, right there.” 

The ogre chuckles his approval, though it could as easily be a particularly enthusiastic belch. “The mark is her measure. Show us the brand of the Absolute.”

She readies the bluff, and waits for the pleasurable jolt. The mind is a primitive thing and the rush is always the same: the tinkling anticipation of a clever trick, a skilled sleight of hand, a daring con, no matter that the stakes aren’t all that great—walk out unscathed, or end up as dinner. It’s no different than the tingle she gets when a client’s eyes widen with avarice at the sight of yet another “priceless” treasure, purportedly snatched from the jaws of history itself, or the bright little shiver at discovering a tell, or watching a notorious sharper swallow her bluff, hook, line, and sinker. She hadn’t chosen to lead, whatever the others seem to think. It’s simply that when it comes down to it, none of them lie like she does—never with relish, or flair, or the calm precision of an artform long perfected. 

Except, the telltale rush never comes. Instead, the stench of raw meat gone sour knots her stomach and clogs her nose, and her memory fills with images of Zander—his slightly pompous earnestness, his appallingly bad jokes, his impromptu philosophizing. He darts through her memories, still chubby-limbed and snot-nosed, the two little horns on his head stubby and covered in downy fuzz. Her fists pulse with the brawls she barrelled into on his behalf, when other kids jeered at him. 

He’d laugh at her now if she so much as suggested that they’d had it easy. But hadn’t they? Gold had always been the universal solvent in Brynnlaw, no matter what shape you took, no matter who your mother whelped you with. Enough gold, enough influence, enough friendly faces in the shadows, enough arses in the proper seats, and things tended to sort themselves out. Except, none of that matters now, and the mangled tiefling on the floor is the same shade of delicate carnelian as her oldest, dearest friend.

She feels the others’ eyes on her, prodding her through her hesitation, but it’s as if her tongue is glued to the roof of her mouth.

In her peripheral vision, the vampire shifts slightly. “Looks like our newfound friends don’t fret over cooking their food either. And here I thought I’d remain a pariah.” 

His questionable quip—and the thick sarcasm beneath the droll tone—don’t carry far, aimed for her ears only, but it’s enough to prod her out of her deadly paralysis, a flash of irritation at her own reluctant amusement just enough to cut through the spiraling stupor. The lie rolls out smooth and easy—no bluster, just the right dose of confident self-satisfaction at being the Absolute’s chosen. For a split second, she feels the conviction of it in her bones, absolute indeed, and how’s that for cosmic irony. The ogre sighs, his massive shoulders slumping in disappointment. On a whim, she considers pushing her luck and trying to recruit them, but the thought clots into a fresh bout of nausea, so she folds while she’s ahead.

It’s not until evening, when they set up a makeshift camp on a narrow, rocky ledge, the bonfires of the goblin encampment on the other side of the steep gorge painting the evening sky crimson, that the bloodsucker broaches the subject. For once, he does it out of earshot of the others, and Lledryl tenses at this suspicious display of delicacy. 

It’s not like him to forego an audience.

“Far be it from me to criticize your intrepid handling of the miscellaneous rabble we encounter, but _that_ was uncomfortably close.” He smiles, close-lipped, no fangs showing. It’s almost charming—another con, no doubt, but at least he’s adaptable, she’ll give him that. “I will, of course, accept your gratitude for rescuing you from your rhetorical impasse in whatever form you wish to express it.”

“Aren’t you magnanimous.” It’s more sour than antagonistic, and she is too tired and too marooned in the queasy mire of her homesickness and the terror her dreams will bring to summon enough bile to chase him off. He seems to settle into this new lack of pointed hostility with the lazy contentment of a pampered cat, and she watches him stretch out at her side, his hands behind his head, his gaze on the pale scatter of early stars. He is infuriatingly at ease, and the words tumble out before she can hold them back. “If you’re angling for a snack, Toothy, your timing could really use some work.” 

He turns to survey her from under hooded lids. “You know, a simple verbal acknowledgement would have sufficed, but if this is your way of suggesting that you wouldn’t be opposed to another nibble at a later date, who am I to disappoint?”

Lledryl scowls and lets her eyes drift to the flame-stained horizon. “Does it help?”

“Does _what_ help, darling? You’ll have to be a tad more specific—unless you wish me to make use of our wriggly friend. For all my other fine qualities, I have never been a mind-reader. Not until recently, in any case.”

A mirthless chuckle escapes her, to another flare of irritation. “Being utterly vile about it all. Does it make it more livable?”

The silence stretches, swelling with the quiet crackle of the fire, and Wyll’s restless snores. 

“I wouldn’t say _livable_ , all things being equal. But finding whatever amusement one can dredge up?” He trails off before adding, with a great deal more glibness, “there are worse ways to pass the time. As well as better ones, naturally.” 

She bats away the easy bait. “This Casimir of yours, or Salazar, or whatever his name is. Two hundred years under one fanged tosser’s boot is a long time, is what I’m saying. Rubs off on you, I’d guess.”

“Cazador Szarr. I’m surprised you’ve never heard of him.” 

She turns, and there is something sharp in his expression now, sharp and a little vicious. He catches her gaze and smiles, wicked in that calculated way of his. “Baldur’s Gate is a long voyage from that pirate enclave you call home. Whatever brought you there, I wonder?”

He isn’t fishing or bluffing, that much is plain, so she cuts her losses and shrugs. “Business, what else? None of it yours. Why should I have heard of your master?” A horrible little suspicion worms its way into her mind, but she squashes it before it can take root and nudge the tadpole into temptation.

“Best get some rest if we are to tangle with the goblins tomorrow.” His fangs flash amber in the firelight, and then he stands up in one fluid movement and bows, his eyes never leaving hers. “Sweet dreams.”


	5. Chapter 5

“A pretty enough bauble, but an odd place to contemplate it. Or are you trying to keep it away from our mage friend?”

Lledryl drags her gaze from the amulet in her palm and watches the vampire stalk closer, the sharp flare of irritation at his silent tread curdling into unease. His capacity to move quietly comes in handy enough during their skirmishes, but here, in the desolate gloom of the river gorge, it’s eerie and unwelcome. Across the ravine, the goblin revelries are still in full swing, unceasing through the night, and what she gained in dreamlessness, she lost to the drums. Ice scuttles down her spine, and her skin prickles with a useless bristling reflex, but she keeps her face neutral.

He stops a few paces from her and leans his shoulder against the rockface. She heard him rustle off into the craggy trees, then return in the wee hours, not a hair out of place, not a stray speck of blood on that ridiculous doublet of his, but now his face is tense and lined with something she can’t quite pry apart —an odd expression in his eyes, like he’s fleeing and giving chase all at once. Hunter and hunted, or whatever hackneyed drivel Volo would shove into verse and call it poetry. She liked the scholar, despite his absurdity—or perhaps because of it—but the chances of them crossing paths again are slim to none, unless goblin cooking counts.

The moonlight, or what’s left of it, tangles in the bloodsucker’s hair and paints it in filigrees of blackened silver. For a moment, she finds herself watching him like she would a rival jeweler’s handiwork, trying to decide whether the almandine eyes go well with the alabaster skin; whether the argent curls offset the sharp lines of his face. Not outright gaudy, she decides, but thoroughly predictable. A safe bet, the sort of crowd pleaser you’d pawn off to a wealthy merchant’s wife invited to swim with the big fish for the first time, and terrified of attracting velveted mockery.

He matches her scrutiny with his own—a slow, deliberate once-over. In these early hours, the gilding of his habitual smolder seems thinner, and beneath it, something else lurks, evaluating and ambiguous, neither faux-innocent nor deliberately predatory. She feels a sudden prickle of unwanted curiosity at what he keeps hidden under his insufferable affectations—aside from crude self-interest, of course. That much is easy to detect—same bag of tricks, and all that.

“Enjoying the view?” he asks, quiet, his voice like a silk rope.

Lledryl shrugs and returns her attention to the locket, the bronze warm in her palms. “I could ask you the same thing, with about as much success, I’d wager. And sure, you’re not unpleasant to look at. For something dead, anyway.”

She can almost hear the silence.

“Oh, it’s _something_ , is it?” His voice drops low, sharpening with venom.

“Don’t ogle just to make a point, Toothy, and I won’t have to harp on it.”

He says nothing, but neither does he storm off in a strop. She almost wishes he would, taking the nagging tingle of aggravating curiosity to the Hells, while he’s at it. But he stays anchored, and instead of the usual outburst, he hums in quiet amusement.

“And what would I receive in return for depriving myself of the pleasure of witnessing your delectable physique? Make me a counteroffer, and I will... consider.”

“You will get a distinct lack of a fist to the jaw. How’s that?”

His teeth glint in the dull moonlight—a sharp, too-wide smile, not entirely unappealing. “Do you intend this as a deterrent, my dear, or an incentive? I find it’s always best to ask.”

Lledryl sighs and flips the locket over. She can see the cursive engraving on its back well enough, but she can’t quite decipher the scrawl. A name, most likely, or a craftsman’s mark, thready with the metal’s accumulated histories of wear.

“Is this the trinket you received from the grateful parents of that tiefling child?” There is an edge of annoyance to his voice, perhaps at her lack of response, perhaps at her purposefully diverted attention. “May I?” he asks after a moment.

She lets him lift the chain from her fingers.

“A weak enchantment, from what I can tell. I’m certain it should be safe from Gale’s… appetites. And yet here you are, cradling it like some long-lost memento.” He rubs his thumb over the embossed design. “Don’t tell me this has become some kind of sentimental placeholder. A lonesome guiding light,” he intones, with mock pathos, “on the troubled waters of your ethical erring? Is that it?”

Lledryl feels her jaw clench. She reaches, bolt-fast, to pluck the amulet from his dancing fingers, but he’s quicker. He vanishes the locket with a showy flourish. “Poof! Gone.” His ironic deadpan sheaths a challenge, and he meets her glare with an infuriatingly expectant smirk.

“Am I supposed to be impressed?” Her voice matches his silent mockery. “A nine year old could pull off that trick. It’s in your left sleeve, Toothy, billowing horror that it is. Hand it over, before you drop it somewhere.”

He brings his hand to his heart, the very picture of innocence maligned. “You wound me, darling! I’d never dream of insulting you with vulgar sleight of hand. I’m quite afraid it’s gone for good—lost between the planes.” He leans in, undeterred by her glower. “Search me, if you’d like.”

Perhaps it’s the irritation, or the exhaustion, or the need to slice things down the middle, but she grasps his forearm, then the other, a quick, practiced pat to locate the hidden blade, or ace, or coin—it’s all the same in the end. His eyes narrow a fraction ahead of his movement, and then he flips the hold in one fluid reversal. She’s ready for it, vaguely pleased at recognizing yet another tell, so she shoves him, hard, her ankle hooked behind his calf, his own momentum working against him. He lurches to the side, compensating, and yanks her to him, his grip on her arm steeling into a vise as her footing falters on the loose gravel.

Her back collides with the rockface, but the pain doesn’t come—he cushions the blow with his arm, and now there’s not enough space between them to wedge a knife in. His breath doesn’t change with exertion, she notes through the aloof abstraction of stark terror, not even a hitch.

Up close, there’s something magnetic about his eyes, and she can’t seem to pull herself away—a slow, self-cognizant sinking, like being caught in quicksand. He presses her into the wall, and his hand comes up to her mouth—slow and hypnotic. He rubs his thumb across her lower lip in a soft caress that quickly firms to the dull edge of danger, and her body answers in kind, ahead of any rational thought. Whatever’s in his expression, she doesn’t like it one little bit. The gleam of lust, she can deal with, the glimmer of hunger, less so, but it’s the thing beneath it that raises the hairs on her nape and makes her palm itch for the hilt of her dagger, useless in its sheath, even as her back arches with the pressure of his leg between her thighs.

He shifts, closer still, and now there is no mistaking the appalling contradiction of it, the sweet little lurch of arousal in her belly seesawing against the instinctive revulsion clotting her throat. Her mind screams for her to run, or hide, or reach for something sharp and slice it across his carotid before he sinks his fangs into her skin. But the other part of her, the one that could never pass up a gamble, grabs the reins. Her hand fists into his hair and she yanks his head back.

“Are you planning on biting me, Toothy?” She orders her breath to ease, orders her fingers to trail to his neck, where two old puncture wounds wink from beneath his ridiculous collar, and she traces a slow straight line between the two circular scars. His skin is cold, no warmer than the night air or the rocks at her back. He shudders and breathes in deep, nostrils flaring. “Or do you just want a tumble?” she finishes, quieter than she’d like.

“Given a choice?”

Ah, but there it is, in the voice—the strain absent from his lungs, or whatever passes for them, is caught in his vocal cords, and his words coil tight around whatever he’s keeping in check. Then something in him shifts, and his cheek creases in a smile that never touches his eyes. “Perhaps you’re simply impossible to resist? So who could blame me, really...”

She bares her teeth, aiming for a sneer, but the absurdity of his statement catches the edge of her humor, and she snorts instead, amusement overriding the jitters—an unlikely mixture, heady and strange. “Toothy, have you actually tested this particular line before? Does it work? I have to know.”

He arches a brow, though his come-hither smolder is all theatrics now. “Naturally, it works.” He doesn’t let go, but the tension lifts from him, and his gaze drifts inward. “If it’s any consolation, I wasn’t planning on this—whatever this is. I was _going_ to offer a trade. Your locket for the reason you were in Baldur’s Gate.”

Lledryl blinks, but the surprise flattens to suspicion before spiking into a flare of fury. She keeps it in check, but not well. “The locket’s not yours to trade, Astarion.” His name in her mouth feels strange, like a foreign spice with a deceptive flavor, aimed at a different palate. “It’s mine.”

“And here I thought we would all share the spoils.”

“My lies, my neck on the line, my boon. It’s simple, if you think about it. I don’t go rifling through your pockets or peek under Gale’s robes or go nosing around in Shadowheart’s pack to see what you lot lug around. Same rules apply.”

His lips quirk. “That’s… quite the image. Given Gale’s robes some thought, have we?” He steps back abruptly and cocks his head to the side, puzzlement rippling across his features before he takes control of his expression. “Why did you let me bite you, the first time? It’s abundantly clear you find the thought appalling.”

She considers adapting her words to what he likely wants to hear—a habit long since turned instinctual—but there’s no tingle to it, no sense of rightness, no inkling of an arrow flying true a second before it hits its target. For lack of better options, she shrugs and lets her thoughts form into words. “It’s like with any weapon, I suppose. You need to know what it feels like on your own hide if you’re hoping to use it.”

“Is that what I am? A weapon?” The irony hides whatever emotion might dwell beneath—a flash of hurt, perhaps, quickly smothered, unless it’s nothing but masks all the way down.

She shakes off the shudder before he can notice it and shrugs again. “There are worse things.”

Before he can respond, a perky “Oy, boss!” followed by an irritable “Tchk! Silence, ichtik, before I cut out your tongue,” drifts on the night air. Lledryl extends her hand, palm up.

“Give it back, Toothy. I’ll tell you for free once we’re through the goblins.”

His eyes narrow, but then he moves, quick and graceful, and plucks the locket from behind her ear. The bronze disk falls into her hand, cool against her palm.

“I will hold you to that.” He lets the pause accrue restless unease. “If we survive.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This game mechanic / plot hole was bothering the crap out of me, so in the fic stew it goes. A bit angsty, just a heads up.

“That... is a _lot_ of blood.”

Lledryl ignores the vampire. With a great deal of effort she turns her head towards Gale, hovering over her with all the concentrated disapproval of a brooding hen, and she waits for the mage to come into focus before opening her mouth. There is no pain anymore, only a cold, creeping numbness, and an uncomfortable delay between her thoughts and her capacity to form words.

The screams below have stopped. Here, in the dusty rafters of the befouled temple, with her back propped against the crumbling masonry and her hands loose around the arrow shaft embedded in her thigh, everything seems oddly hushed, and the voices of her companions reach her as if from a great distance. And to think it’d gone so well, at the beginning… They even managed to meet the others without getting slaughtered or eaten on the way. Mel is going to kill her. Or...Well. Metaphorically speaking, considering the state of affairs.

“It’s not slowing down… ah, yes, hold still now, let me just-”

Lledryl forces her lips to move. Her mind is clear, still, but it won’t stay that way for long. Best get it out while she still has time. “How many healing potions?”

The mage winces. “Just the one left, I’m afraid, but don’t you worry, you’ll be good as new, just try to hold still for a moment while I staunch the bleeding. Damned-”

Her vision speckles with dark blooms. She ignores them, focusing on getting her thoughts out in spoken form. Perhaps using the tadpole would be faster. “No. Minthara left to deal with.” She should have taken Shadowheart, instead of sending her with Mel to fetch the druid out of the pens. They’d banked on stealth, not on an outright confrontation, but the Mind Flayer had been a bit of a surprise. “Not enough for me to fight.”

“My dear, while your selflessness is commendable-”

Lledryl manages to shake her head. “Not selfless. Test.” There’s no way for them to win this, and she will be useless until properly healed. The vampire seems to be holding up, but he’s favoring his left side, where the hobgoblin’s hammer caught him. The mage is so visibly depleted that he seems to have aged a decade—sickly pale under his tan, and sunken-cheeked. And the githyanki, for all her lethality, won’t take out the rest of the goblins by her lonesome—not without being quiet about it. But more than that, it’s the simplicity of the potential solution, in case the Halsin fellow proves another dead end. And if it doesn’t pan out? Well, it still beats sprouting tentacles, or being skewered during one of Lae’s sudden rages.

She can hear the rush of waves in the spaces between the words, the surf whispering over turquoise shoals, the shrieks of gulls gliding on the wind. “Resurrection scroll, left side, behind the lining.” When the mage’s brow furrows, she rushes over him before he can object and waste more time. “Dead dwarf.” She can’t seem to get enough of a breath in, and her heart labors at painful speed, _thud, thud, thud_ in her ears, or perhaps it is just the docked fishing boats jostling into each other on choppy waves.... “Died. Tadpole crawled out.” She wants to close her eyes and drift into the warm sea and sunlit air. Adir smelled like that, like sunlight on sand. “Can’t test with you, because… _boom_. Can’t test with Astarion, because dead anyway.” To his credit, the bloodsucker doesn’t argue. Breathing hurts, more than anything else. “One hundred beats after the pulse stopped, I counted. Wait two hundred.”

“Do you have any notion at all of how _risky_ this is? A resurrection scroll-” he intones, with that slightly nasal timbre that presages a lecture.

“At your discretion, then. Best of a bad deal,” she adds.

Gale gears up to argue further, but the vampire cuts across him. “She has a point, you know. If the solution to our problems is this simple… I will stay with her, should you need to prepare the spell.”

 _“Beloved…_ ”

Adir’s voice rustles at the periphery of her awareness, a ghostly whisper, familiar yet wrong, like a shadow where one shouldn’t be. Then again, perhaps it’s the tadpole trying to talk her out of the ridiculous gambit.

“-not at all because you see an opportunity to feed, is it?” The mage’s outrage reaches her ears, then wanes, an aging moon over watery depths, and on the horizon, a ship with dark sails, flying no flag...

“-not a hair on her head. You have my word.”

“And what is that worth, precisely? No offense, Astarion, but...”

Mel is going to kill her…

“Stop arguing.” The effort to speak costs her, but at the thought of her old friend, her mind clears a little. “It’s all leaking out anyway, I don’t see how it’ll make much of a difference. Do it, Gale.”

“And if the spell fails to bring you back?”

“Skeleton guy, then. Enough coin, I think.”

He grumbles something about ill-advised allies, and magic that should not be possible, and hidden costs, but Lledryl drifts. Someone rummages through her jack, then peels it off, but she feels no change in temperature—the cold is deep and dense in her bones, a strange stillness there. No pain, at least.

“Hey, Toothy... What’s it like, at the end?”

“Well, you _are_ about to find out, aren’t you?” There is a note of aggravation beneath the bloodsucker’s glibness, but then she feels a sudden pressure around her hand—cold on cold. The vampire looms into her narrowing vision. Trying to read his expression is entirely too much effort, so she closes her eyes.

“Lonesome.” His voice is so quiet that she isn’t sure she didn’t imagine it, but the word wraps itself into an old pirate shanty, coming from somewhere just over the horizon of her attention, and if she could just follow it, there would warmth and sunlight; the smell of grilled spices; her mother’s creaky grousing over the illicit minting press, perpetually breaking as if blighted with some strange ill-luck. Then, just down the dusty street, two doors away, Zander’s murky study, tomes piled in precariously leaning towers. Mel, sitting on the windowsill with an alchemy manual...

“ _Why do you shun this gift, beloved?”_

Adir, who is not Adir at all but some abomination she has no name for, tries to lure her away from the sea, back to herself and the useless impasse she’s in…

“Hush, now.” The vampire again, and his words are oddly gentle. “Struggling only makes it worse. I won’t be making _that_ mistake again.” Absurdly, the last thing she senses before her beloved sea swallows her, is the twitch of amusement at his gallows humor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, and for your kudos and comments. :) You probably guessed that this won't be following the game blow-by-blow, but rather exploring at the edges of what we have, plot wise, and occasionally going off into random speculations about potential plot points and character backgrounds.


	7. Chapter 7

Sensation returns slowly, awareness even slower. The pain precedes them in pulsing reverberations. The strange floating feeling in her limbs dissolves like salt in warm water, replaced by an assortment of aches, though they seem more ambulatory than localized—thigh, shoulder, ribs, head, back to thigh—all of it scuttling and gnawing like a rat in a confined space looking for an escape. Her eyes, when she manages to peel them open, are the worst part of it, the light sharp and cutting. Lledryl squints, holds down the panic of disorientation through sheer willpower, swallows back the racking nausea the best she can, and orders herself to focus her vision. 

Beard, long hair, purple robes. Gale. Something cold is pressed against her lips, and before she can identify what it is, her mouth fills with the bitter bite of a healing tonic. She swallows with difficulty, trying not to choke. The pain recedes to a dull discomfort.

What had happened? Her eyes dart around, assessing, looking for threats. Kill the leaders is the last clear thing she recalls. The rest comes back eventually, rising through the murky depths of her confusion. 

“Shouldn’t have wasted the potion.” Her voice comes out as a hoarse croak, and Gale tuts in disapproval.

“I see your contrarian disposition hasn’t been altered—a very good sign, in my opinion.” The mage’s tone is warm and a tad too ebullient, belying a note of unmistakable relief. “How do you feel? I was beginning to—well, not so much worry, exactly, but in the interest of disclosure and experimental rigor, you should know that the scroll did not activate as quickly as I had hoped. All is well that ends well, of course… Hold a moment, I will find you some water.” 

Boots scuff against the stones, soft echoes marking his retreating footsteps. They are still in the rafters. Mineral dust swirls in the weak light of the guttering torches below. Lae’zel is nowhere in sight, which means that her recent foray into death didn’t last that long—and that only Gale and the bloodsucker have witnessed her experiment. Best keep it that way, all things being equal.

Lledryl stifles a wince. Mel will likely find out, eventually. And then threaten to finish the job the arrow started, since controlling her temper has never been the woodland elf’s most laudable quality. Though if her group managed to find the druid, perhaps they need not have that particular conversation at all.

“Welcome back.” The words are low and smooth, silk on bare skin. Her head snaps in the direction of the voice, the flare of unease laced with a turbulent restlessness, like picking a difficult lock on an ornate strongbox, likely boobytrapped. 

The vampire. He was the last thing she saw before the sea dissolved her, a minuscule pinch to its salty vastness.

“What wouldn't one do for a definitive answer, hmm?” Now that her eyesight has cleared, there’s something _odd_ about his expression, some different species of hunger, distinct from his usual performative flirtatiousness and the carnivorous thing it conceals. She can’t quite put her finger on it, but _recognition_ is the closest she can summon, and for the briefest of flickers, before her mind resettles into itself, it conjures a disquieting analogy—like staring too long into a mirror until the reflection distorts and fractures and the face of another watches back. 

“See?” He calls out, seemingly addressing himself to the mage. “Not a hair on her head out of place, figuratively speaking.” His expression relaxes, smoothing out into an ironic smile—charming and almost genuine. A near-perfect facsimile. “Then again, I suppose it would be difficult to say for certain were anything indeed out of place in that... lush mane of yours.” He leans in, so close she should be able to catch his scent, but aside from woodsmoke, he provides no olfactory cues whatsoever. Not even the coppery tang of blood. He lifts an errant strand away from her face, winding it around his finger before tucking it behind her ear. His knuckles brush her cheekbone—delicate, but oh-so-deliberate, like the rest of his horseshit. His touch on the curve of her ear is cold and strangely smooth, as if his fingertips, unlike hers, never roughened with daggerwork or labor. Perhaps his undeath stripped him of whatever callouses he might have earned. Or, perhaps, he really is that pampered.

_Overgrown leech._ Her mental jab overrides the sudden, utterly perverse impulse to lean into his touch. What in the everburning Hells is wrong with her?

“Tadpole?” she manages. Her mouth is suddenly terribly dry. She decides not to consider the cause too closely and ignores the vampire’s newfound display of… whatever the fuck this is.

Gale returns and presses a skin of water into her hands. He is tense, brow grooved with a chronic habit of questioning, and he rubs his temple in sympathetic mimicry to her own pulsing headache. “I waited for as long as I thought was wise, but, unfortunately, our little friend chose not to relocate.”

Of course. It would have been too damn easy. She shutters the pang of disappointment behind a shallow frown. “Figures. Do we have anyone else to compare to, aside from the dwarf?”

“Nothing conclusive, at least not as far as that horrid priestess was concerned.” The mage’s expression turns from pensive to mildly apologetic. “I will perhaps reconsider applying fire quite so liberally next time we chance upon another host. Effective as it is, it does tend to obliterate any evidence.” His eyes crease with a self-deprecating smile. “Now, freezing them might have potential. Alternatively, a shock spell, perhaps...”

“Best check the hobgoblin.” She tries to shift her body to ease the amorphous, circulating pain, but her vision swims and she drops her head between her knees, waiting out the dizziness.

“I doubt we’ll get much out of him at this point, unless you’re planning on retrieving his unsightly remains from that spider pit,” the vampire interjects. “As enjoyable as it was to watch you trip him off the beam, my dear, his subsequent fall was… a little too fortuitous. Elegant solution though it was,” he adds, hidden amusement warming his voice. 

Trying to decide whether he means it as flattery or as an underhanded insult is too much effort, so Lledryl shrugs. “Let’s keep a close eye on the next True Soul we kill, then.” 

Gale cocks an eyebrow at the same time as Astarion flashes one of his sharp grins, fangs and all, and Lledryl huffs in half-hearted amusement at the sick irony of her statement. 

The mage straightens with an audible pop in his knee joints. “It seems that, for now, the druid is truly our best option.”

“Don’t let Lae’zel catch you saying that,” Lledryl grumbles. 

He nods a bit distractedly. “We have, in fact, learned something new, lest you believe your effort was wasted.”

“Indeed we have.” The vampire’s tone is thoughtful. “Is it just me, or is the parasite infecting us inordinately clever?” 

Before she can think better of provoking the bloodsucker on purpose, the words are out. “Is that admiration, Toothy?”

His eyes narrow. “Merely healthy respect for our opponent.” He purses his lips and holds her gaze for a few beats too long. “Of course, if you would rather have a mindless beast inside you, darling, I’m sure it could be arranged.” He gestures expansively towards the dead goblins below. “There is no shortage.”

The verbal trap is so obvious it doesn’t even deserve disarmament, but she can’t quite help herself. “And here I thought you were about to volunteer.”

“Only if you say ‘please’.” His tone is playful, but she can hear the challenge beneath it, one step away from venom.

The fury ignites like dry kindling, never far from the surface whenever the vapid bastard’s needling rears its ugly head. She holds his gaze and smiles. “I don’t fuck dead things.”

“No?” he asks, and something twists in her stomach at the knowing look he gives her—something to do with her own tadpole and the dreams it brings, but it’s too fleeting to grasp, and it slips away.

Gale clears his throat and casts a somewhat awkward glance between them. Lledryl tries to ignore her suddenly burning ears and pushes off the wall, hoping her legs will hold her. The dizziness passes quickly, and the pain is dull enough to function—she won’t be fighting up close and personal until Shadowheart patches her up, but it’s adequate for working at range. She inhales, then releases her breath through her teeth, a sharp jolt of fear joining her bouncing collection of assorted discomforts. 

Much as she doesn’t like it, best smooth things out with the bloodsucker before she finds a dagger in her back in the heat of battle. “I hate to say it, Toothy, but you have a point.”

One silver eyebrow travels up. “Do I, now?” he purrs.

“How sentient do you think it actually is? Each individual tadpole, I mean.” 

Gale’s attention snaps to her, and the vampire’s lips press into a thin line. 

“I’ve sort of been thinking of them as…” She trails off. How _has_ she been thinking of them? Not at all, if she can help it, not that the damned worm doesn’t come with unpleasant reminders when it’s feeling ignored. Another point of commonality with the other parasite of the vampiric persuasion, she supposes. “As a channel, of sorts, for whatever’s behind this. Not as…”

The mage nods his understanding before she can complete her half-formed idea. “Something possessed of its own awareness, yes. The eventuality has crossed my mind.” He clears his throat. “Considering what we know of the typical ceremorphosis process, I would venture that perhaps our tadpoles are-”

He doesn’t get the chance to finish. A sharp whistle bounces off the walls, and Lledryl steps towards the crumbling ledge. Two short trills, then a long one. She can never remember which bird the sound it meant to emulate, but she knows it for what it is—Mel. _Mission accomplished. Some complications._

“Best keep this to ourselves for now. Let’s revisit it if we learn anything from the Drow,” she throws over her shoulder before shouldering her pack.


	8. Chapter 8

A stuttering shudder goes through the gnoll, and Lledryl reels back, trying to yank her mind out of the tether. Panic twists her stomach, to the rhythm of a terminal realization— _too late, too late, too late_. She’s pushed too far, and now she is trapped for good, and the abomination will take her with it — a hollow victory, and she can almost feel it gloat behind its terror, one last spark of malice to mark its exit. She tries to tear herself out, but she’s up to her ears in the silt of its carnivorous simplicity, and there’s no severing the link without taking on the echo of its death. The beast’s eyes go wrong with the final rupture she instigated, self-preservation grinding into the tadpole’s imperative. One pupil contracts to a pinprick, but the other stays blown, wide and loose and strangely contourless, like an inkblot. 

What kind of sick pondscum thought it’d be a good idea to use _that_ as a host? 

The thought doesn’t feel entirely her own. 

A flash of steel, a sibilant grunt, and she is free, though it takes a second to realize the head rolling down the cliffs isn’t hers, but the gnoll’s. The rest of it keels over, hitting the sandstone with a dusty thud. 

The githyanki wipes her spear on the grass and bears down on her with blistering rage. “Tch! You are possibly the most _stupid_ specimen of your kind I have ever set eyes on, istik!” 

Ryl crosses her arms and glares right back. “Are you done whinging? Next time, if you want to make use of _your_ tadpole to save our hides, don’t let me stop you. Funny though, I didn’t hear you volunteering.”

Lae narrows her strange eyes, cocks her head with that slow reptilian coldness that comes over her whenever her rage mixes with the confusion of alienation, and jerks her chin. “Count yourself lucky that your tongue is more advantageous in your gullet than outside of it.”

The vampire drifts closer. “I couldn’t agree more, though I suppose one might imagine a few other uses for it.” The quip seems more automatic than targeted. His eyes are trained on the mouth of the cave. 

“The gnolls are dead, aren’t they? So, problem solved.” Lledryl turns her back on the duo before the itch to trip them off the cliff tempts her into more rash decisions. One near-fatal mistake per day seems like a good quota to aim for. “There’s still that lot in the cave.” She eyes the charred grounds. “That’s quite a bit of firepower for a humble caravan.”

Shadowheart shields her eyes against the glare. “Will we just aimlessly stand here waiting for accolades from these sorry fools, or do you intend on seeing what they were transporting?” 

A dry shuffle at the bottom of the blood-streaked gulch draws Lledryl’s eyes. “Looks like the accolades will come first,” she mutters. 

They scramble down the cliffs, and she takes the lead again, the others close behind her—more nuisance to her reflexes than solid back-up, their presence like the precarious, hollow wobble of a flimsy plank jutting out over roiling waves. 

She should’ve taken Mel instead.

The blond fellow— clearly, the leader of what’s left of the group—is a bit scuffed around the edges, but unharmed, from what Ryl can tell. Handsome enough, in a rough-hewn sort of way, and she can smell trouble on him even beneath the stench of blood and acrid alchemical accelerant, the type of trouble that comes with the casual self-assurance of someone used to cutting a problem down the middle without burdening himself with the ethics of it. Some species of cutthroat—and it takes one to know one, she supposes—so likely a merc, or some other kind of blade for hire.

“By the gods, you’re a sweet sight,” he breathes, a relieved grimace crossing his features as he takes in the carnage. His voice is pleasant, low and a little rough.

“Nicest thing I’ve heard all day, so that should tell you how my day has been,” Ryl shoots back, a quick grin offered and received, and while his attention wanders to her face, she takes him in more fully. His armor is road-worn but solid quality and the bow at his back is wrought from some dark, supple wood she can’t quite recognize. He bears no company insignia, or nothing obvious, in any case.

“Didn’t expect a Drow to come sweeping in,” he says, with a familiar mixture of surprise and caution. “Are any of my crew still alive out there?” He doesn’t look too hopeful.

So he’s with an outfit, but which one? The grove dwellers mentioned that the land had been plagued with monsters for some time now. No caravaneer in their right mind would’ve chanced a dicey tract unless they wanted to buy time, and shelling out on a mercenary company means the expenses and risks were worth it. Ryl shakes her head. “Blood and guts is all I saw.” 

The merc’s lips press into a grim line. “Damn it. The Risen Road is more dangerous than ever. You’re the first friendly face we’ve seen since Elturgard.”

He’s a long way from home, and she supposes that makes two of them. She feels her facial muscles soften with the solidarity of their shared displacement, and he notices her reaction, his expression mirroring hers back, though there’s a shrewd edge to him, more entrenched than the momentary gratitude of an unexpected rescue. 

Tricky bastard. “What were you transporting?” 

She doesn’t expect him to tell the truth, and he doesn’t. “Trinkets for some rich tosser in Baldur’s Gate. He gets his shiny baubles, we get a handful of Terenths.” His eyes track sideways before traveling over her armor. Whatever conclusion he comes to, he catches her gaze and holds it, a challenge there—the slip-up about the currency clearly deliberate. 

Ryl stills, forcing her features into the placidity of a tight card game. So he’s Zhentarim. The crates of weapons they found in the goblin encampment weren’t goblin-made—and they certainly weren’t Drow craftsmanship, either. Either the goblin raids had been going particularly well, or they’d had a supplier. But why would the Black Network deal to a group of goblin zealots? Unless…

“You’re Zhent. Your people don’t deal in ‘baubles.’” 

Something flashes across his face—a glimmer of deliberation, if she were to guess—but, at length, he chuckles quietly, a knowing little smirk creasing the corners of his eyes. “Clever lass like you, you know it’s not smart to stick your nose in Zhent business.” He leaves it barbless—a warning, but not quite a threat yet, nor a deterrent. “And who might you be with? The Black Network doesn’t like competition.” 

The little rush of anticipation sends an electric tingle into her palms, and she smiles, close-lipped but with just the right amount of warmth behind it, long enough for a question to flicker in his eyes. “I work for myself,” she offers. He’s got nice eyes, she thinks in passing—a muted, stormy blue. If he takes her up on the offer, she might kill two birds with one stone, and find out what the Zhent got in return for their weapons, in addition to a potentially useful contact. Tymora knows, their deck is thin as it is, as poor in allies as they are in coin. Another card up their sleeve won’t hurt. “It’s your employer’s mess, but we could still turn a profit, no?”

He doesn’t so much as hesitate, relinquishing his cargo with alarming ease, as if Beshada herself had spat on it. Ryl supposes she just might have, considering the blood spilled over it. 

He goes by Rugan, though whether the moniker is real or fake, she doesn’t particularly care. They trade names, and cautious plans, and he gives out the passphrase to some hideout further west, after a threat or two about not cutting him out of their deal. Ryl meets his scowl with an insolent grin she doesn’t even have to fake. In between their negotiations, he takes her measure, and it’s not all business, either. His eyes flick to her lips, to her neck, then trail down, hitching along the way on whatever he might be imagining beneath her leathers, but at least he’s not lude about it, nor performative—just that simple, quick rush of heady heat that comes on the heels of unexpected survival. She doesn’t move, letting him complete his inventorizing. Perhaps three birds with one stone, then, and would it be so terrible to forget the horrorshow her life has become for a few nights, a shared bottle of rum later, with her legs wrapped around the smuggler’s hips? They’re cut from the same cloth, give or take a stitch or two, and if the Zhent strings spell trouble down the road, then what they don’t discuss can’t summon it. Besides, down the road might never materialize—not for her, anyway, and whatever she’ll become won’t care a whit about her dalliances.

A wink, a saucy little salute, and he’s off, what’s left of his crew falling in practiced formation around him. 

Ryl ignores Lae’zel’s impatient “ _Tas’ki_ ” and waits until the mercenaries disappear behind a bend in the gulch. Something is pricking at the back of her mind, a niggling little thought about the way the gnoll’s tadpole had felt so inimical to everything the creature was—clumsy and ill-fitted, like a hopelessly botched inlay. 

“If you’re quite done mooning over that blond cutthroat, the day isn’t getting younger.” Beneath her usual icy haughtiness, Shadowheart’s tone bears a trace of dry amusement. “We should meet the others to see the druid.”

The thought slips, not quite coalescing into a clearer picture and Ryl shrugs. “I might as well enjoy the view while I can. Beats staring at your scowling mugs all day.” 

Perhaps the gnoll’s tadpole insertion was not so much botched, as it was rushed.

“If you can bear tearing yourself away from contemplating that scoundrel’s backside, darling, we have the chest now.” The vampire’s voice is a bit too equanimical. “Are you planning on opening it?”

She hums in distracted agreement. Either whatever the Zhent were transporting wasn’t obtained fairly, or the goblins—or, more probably, the Drow—had decided to get their payment back. Or perhaps it’s nothing more than coincidence, and she is barking at shadows. But why send gnolls, unless the loss of the caravan is meant to look like a random accident… 

Only one way to find out. 

Decision made, she turns to the vampire. “Want to pick the lock, Toothy, or should I?”

He lifts an eyebrow in question. “To what do I owe this sudden display of confidence in my skills?” His eyes narrow slightly. “Ah. You think the chest is trapped, don’t you?”

She meets his gaze and doesn’t bother with the spectacle of denial. “As a matter of fact, that’s exactly what I think. And since you were saying something about putting my tongue to good use earlier, I suggest we do the same with your fingers.”

He bows. The sudden certainty that he’ll retaliate later, when she’s got her guard down, pricks her spine with clammy unease. “At your service,” he purrs, before slinking off into the cave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've reworked a bit of Rugan's dialogue to add a bit of "rogue character" flavor ;)


	9. Chapter 9

The air is so thick with lingering smoke, and the steam rising in the wake of the torrential rain the cleric summoned that Ryl can barely see anything beyond her outstretched arm. Her eyes sting and her lungs seize with the bitter stench, and she brings her arm up to shield her nose and mouth, but it’s no use. Water soaks her hair, trickling down under her collar in icy rivulets, and she turns her face towards the dwindling droplets, letting them wash the blood and soot off her face.

It’s done, at least. Another spur of the moment decision that could’ve easily gotten them all slaughtered, made on the sharp edge between two shite choices. Then again, the chances of them walking out of the Zhent hideout unscathed were as thin as gold leaf from the start of it.

Somewhere to her right, a terror-filled scream cuts abruptly, dangling on a wet gurgle. Silence follows it, that eerie, final quiet that always comes on the reverse side of bloodrage—thick as custard until the moans of the wounded and the dying slice through it. There are few noises, this time—they went at it fast, if not particularly clean.

Quiet footsteps draw nearer, and she recognizes the bloodsucker’s soft prowling. The limestone absorbs the footfalls, but her ears have grown primed for it, in some base survival instinct she would have happily lived without.

The others are shadows in the smoke, a darker shade of grey congealing into amorphous outlines.

She wipes her daggers on the burlap draped over a nearby crate and waits for Shadowheart to do something about the remaining smoke before they all suffocate—feeling oddly indifferent about the prospect.

Metal clanks in time with a rhythmic gait, and Lae’zel emerges from the curtain of smoke, her eyes bloodshot, a brief grin stretching her lips in sated satisfaction. “The creatures of this Fay-run are softer and squishier than fresh hatchling—killing them is hardly a worthy sport, but I will not deny that I enjoyed the elegance of this skirmish.” Her eyes flash. “You and I work well together, istik. I felt almost no shame fighting at your side today.”

Ryl offers a mock bow and tucks away the nascent grin. “Careful, gith, a few more compliments like that and you’ll have me blushing and tripping over my own feet.”

Lae stares at her in what Ryl assumes must be consternation. “Why would stating the obvious make you behave in such an undignified and inefficient manner?”

Ryl snorts despite herself. “I’m going to blame it on your economical nose.”

Lae’zel narrows her eyes, but her lips hitch in what might be an actual smile, instead of her usual bloodcurdling rictus, and Ryl files it away as a modest victory. At least, she won’t be getting any shite from the githyanki about picking a fight with the Zhent because she couldn’t bring herself to cut a bound man’s throat.

And speaking of the culprit of their most recent bloodbath…

She approaches the chair and taps the tip of her boot against an outstretched leg. The smuggler’s face is black and blue with bruises, but he stirs with a groan and tries to peel his swollen eyes open, without much success. “No more,” he rasps. His head falls back, any fight left in him long since leached by the beatings he received at the hands of his erstwhile friends and associates.

The little pang of guilt trips on the tadpole, and Ryl grimaces at the parasite’s soothing susurrations, trying to hang on to the queasy jolt in her stomach before the worm can file away more of her shape.

Cutting through the ropes that bind him is slow work, but she harnesses the meticulous patience of her former craft, trying to cause the smuggler as little unnecessary pain as possible. She’s never been able to temper it out of herself, this hollow pang of pointless sympathy for the losing bet. Up close, she catches his scent, a mixture of woodsmoke and leather and sweat, but nothing worse. Either the Zhent ran out of time, as far as torture went, or the merc has some hidden steel left in him—since he hasn’t lost control of his bladder, at least.

He manages to open one eye, a vivid blue spark nestled in a bed of bruised, discolored flesh. The smile looks like it pains him, but he offers it regardless. “You beautiful bastard,” he chuckles, deep and low, on the incredulous side of exhaustion. “That’s twice now you saved my neck. Thought my luck had finally run out.”

Ryl scowls. “Don’t count your chickens yet. You won’t get very far in this state.”

His teeth catch the torchlight in a tawny glint of sour amusement before he winces and relaxes his facial muscles. “And here I was hoping you’d carry me.”

She harrumphs at his attempt at humor. “Well, aren’t you the distraught damsel.” After a moment of deliberation, she shrugs. “We have a camp. If you can make it on your own, you might rest there, and someone might be willing to patch you up. Until then...” She turns and jerks her chin at Shadowheart in silent question.

The cleric rolls her eyes. “I’m _exhausted_ , and I’d rather not waste any more effort on this feckless cad than we have already.”

“Well said,” the vampire opines, and Ryl doesn’t bother concealing her own irritated eye roll. “Are you planning on rescuing every stray we chance upon, my dear, or only the pretty ones?”

She can feel her jaw tighten with habitual annoyance, but she ignores the bloodsucker’s take on wit—it’s not like he’s any use when it comes to healing, unless one can figure out a way to deploy him for draining wounds. And whatever is at the root of Shadowheart’s temperamental volatility, it has proven resistant to rational negotiation. Besides, she has neither the time nor the energy to cajole the cleric into a display of largesse. But they can afford to spare a healing potion or two, now that they’ve helped themselves to the Zhent operation’s rather impressive stockpile.

She shoulders off her pack and rifles through it, grimacing at the helter-skelter state of her meager belongings. Three vials should be enough, as far as contingency plans go. She presses the bottle of healing potion into the merc’s hands, deciding against spoon feeding him the damn mixture, though the telltale tremor of shock is rattling through him and his fingers on the flask are unsteady. He looks up sharply before draining the bottle in a few long, parched gulps, and what she can make of his expression beneath the damage corroborates the subtle shift in his body language—the way his hand lingers on hers as she passes the potion, the way he shifts his shoulders as she moves to his side to help him get to his feet—like a sunflower tracking sunlight. He leans against her as he steadies himself, a relieved sigh escaping him as the draught takes hold. The bruising fades, though not completely. He is solid and warm against her side; a lean litheness to him that comes with the territory of his chosen trade. He laughs quietly, that raw vitality of narrow survival arcing off him like a static charge.

Ryl swallows past a sudden jolt of restless heat. The chances of him having any answers to offer are low, but if he does, they would be ones she can comprehend—not the whispers of arcane magic, not unfathomable dream phantoms tempting her into a monstrous future with a past that left her high and dry—but the solid, tangible webs of gold and economic power. Any cult worth its salt needs coin, and weapons, and allies in cushy places. Then again, perhaps the bloodsucker has the right of it, and she’s simply trying to make the obvious more palatable for herself, swapping the tangled snares of guilt and favors owed for the gilt of the smuggler’s rugged good looks. When it’s all said and done, this mess of blood and bitter ash is his own doing, but she’s had a hand in it. And if fucking him within an inch of coherence, like she’s tempted—and, judging by the way his good eye is tracking her, she’s not exactly alone in her throughts—won’t settle any score worth mentioning, at least it’ll muddle whatever debts are left. Besides, he’ll be gone in a day or two, wherever the winds of fortune carry him next, and she won’t have to do any accounting for it.

She catches herself staring, catches him noticing, and narrows her eyes. “Rugan, was it?” Inane question, but it gives her something to say.

“Aye, that’s it.” His smile is quick, a tad tilted. “And you have one of those fancy Drow names, so before I butcher it and earn myself a shiv to the ribs, help a bloke out of his predicament one last time, lass. I already owe you my life twice over, what’s one more favor?” He says it light and easy, but with a smuggled cargo of double-meaning in the hull.

“Ryl will do, if you can’t get your tongue around the rest.”

His eyes crease with humor, but he inclines his head in acknowledgement. “It suits you.”

She can almost hear Shadowheart’s impatient groan.

“There’s nothing particularly complicated about the name, my friend,” the vampire suddenly interjects. The highborn lilt of his voice is a little too smooth, a little too crisp—aimed with calculated precision, like a knife to the liver. “Lledryl. A bold ‘el’, a light stress on the last syllable—don’t overdo it, lest you sound like a peasant—and the d- in the middle is soft, of course.” He flashes a flawlessly pleasant smile and doesn’t miss a beat. “Like a caress.”

For once, Lae’zel irritability comes in handy, if for no other reason than rescuing Ryl from the absurdity of the exchange. “Enough of this pointless strutting,” the gith hisses. “We are wasting daylight. If we are not to search for my people’s patrol today, then it is high time we rest and procure a meal.”

Rugan shifts, his hand reaching for the hilt of a weapon no longer at his hip. “As if the Risen Road wasn’t bad enough already, now there’s more gith about, too?”

Lae’zel trains a particularly vicious glare at the merc. “It is none of your business, istik, and I suggest you leave before my patience runs dry. We have already wasted enough time on you and your associates.”

“For once, we are in agreement.” The cleric doesn’t even attempt to hide her disapproval.

“And here I thought we were all getting on so well!”

Ryl ignores the vampire the best she can, but the merc seems to have gotten the general mood regardless. One more look, and he turns around and makes his way to his fallen comrade to rifle through his pockets. He unhooks a scabbard, jostling the corpse without much ceremony, before belting the weapon. “There’s a stockpile, at the back of the cave, behind a false wall. Take the lift down.” He doesn’t turn when he offers up the rest. “It leads to the Underdark, so I’d mind myself, if I were you. Chancy down there, even if you don’t stray too far, though you probably know that already, what with....” He trails off. “And mind the traps, if you don’t want to end up a charred husk.”

Ryl nods, as much in acknowledgement of the trade as anything else. She hadn’t dared opening the flask they found in the caravan’s locked trunk—merely touching the seal had sent an icy chill into her stomach and pricked her back with the unpleasant certainty of being _watched_. Best examine it later, and perhaps in consultation with Gale. But the fact that the hideout opens on a passage into the Underdark suggests that the suspiciously well-organized gnoll ambush was no coincidence.

She gives the directions to the camp, but doesn’t reach for her map. Either the merc will find it, or he won’t. Either her questions will wait, or they will stay unanswered. “What else were your people trading?” she throws at his back. “Aside from weapons?” She doesn’t expect him to spill his organization’s secrets—he’s the only one left standing, so his word brooks no competition should he wish to return to the Zhentarim fold and paint himself innocent.

He stills. “The usual. Weapons and explosives mostly, these days.” He lets the omission dangle there like bait before straightening up. “Best discussed over a flagon and a warm fire?”

He’s not the worst liar she’s met, and the tinge of hopefulness is genuine enough, but there’s an undercurrent to his words, a sediment sieved out. Of course, she can guess well enough what it is—the Black Network never spread its tendrils too deep into Brynnlaw, but she learned early enough not to pry into the degrees of separation, nor ask too many questions of her commissioners. In the end, it’s all the same, and when nothing is forbidden, everything is permitted—whatever turns into gold, whatever churns into power.

She doesn’t ask the question, in the end, and she watches him go, eyes narrowed against the lingering smog. As she turns around, she catches a glimpse of the vampire’s expression— a tense, strange look on his features quickly dispelled in favor of the usual smirk. Still, he remains oddly quiet.

After they find the hidden coffers of the Zhentarim operation, after the stomach-churning vortex of the waypoint spits them out into the red glare of the setting sun refracted from the Chiontar, he approaches her. The others are fifteen paces ahead, trudging up the path leading into the grove, but he falls behind and matches his long gait to hers. “Tell me, darling,” he starts, and his tone is a little too light, “why should it matter what our Zhentarim friends might be trading with the goblins? Is it truly worth inviting a complete stranger to our cozy little company, considering our rather _ghastly_ secret?” He says it with ironic pathos and gestures at his forehead, then motions to hers. “Are you simply enthralled with the handsome scoundrel, or are you searching for the proverbial... profit margin? Not that I would ever judge, of course.”

She casts him a side glance, then trains her eyes on the ivy-covered gate ahead. “It’s the Zhent, Toothy. They’re flesh peddlers, among other things.”

“Ah.” He nods. “Slave traders, you mean.”

Ryl shrugs. “The worst kind of scum, yes. Even by my standards.”

He misses a beat. “And why, precisely, would this matter to us? Or are you planning more dashing rescues to fill up our days?”

She sighs. Perhaps walking through her reasoning out loud will help sort through the jumble, and if the bloodsucker wants to lend his ear… well. Neither worse nor better than talking to herself, in the grand scheme of things. She’ll run it by Mel when they reunite with the others, but until then, the fanged leech will do.

“Well, it’s like this. The goblins have been raiding, right? There were prisoner pens in the camp, but no prisoners, not counting that Volo fellow, the druid, and that unconverted goblin ranting about everyone braiding each other’s hair being unnatural. What they weren’t eating, they would’ve traded, since the Zhent are doing business with them anyway. But we found nothing of the sort in the Zhent cave, either.”

He shrugs. “Perhaps they are using other ways to move them. I still fail to see why this interests you so much.”

Ryl feels her neck prickle with a hot flare of annoyance. “Somehow, I thought you’d be less blazé about it. Didn’t you mention that vampire spawn are, for all intents and purposes, their master’s slaves?”

His expression hardens. “In more ways than you know. What of it? I fail to see how it has anything to do with me, or us for that matter.”

She swallows another flash of frustration. She’d probably have more luck talking to the grove’s somnolent bear. “Let’s say I were to start a new cult, or a syndicate, or any other brand of politicking horseshit. I’d need coin,” she folds one finger, counting off, “I’d need trading partners and supporters in high places. Weapons, for when the backlash inevitably arrives. And I’d need disposable bodies.”

For a few beats, there is nothing but the sound of their footsteps on the dusty ground and the song of cicadas in the tall grasses. She wonders idly what it’s like for him to hear the buzz of diurnal insects, to feel the sun’s touch on his skin, after all these years.

“My dear, for such an enterprise, you would need _power_. Power,” he adds, “in its purest, rawest form. Everything else is…” he motions with his hand, like waving away an irritating fly. “Minutiae.”

“Are people’s lives ‘minutiae’ too?” Somehow, she manages to keep her tone civil, but it costs her. Not that he’s wrong, of course, but his casual dismissiveness still rankles, even if under different circumstances she might have argued the same point.

His eyes linger on her face before he turns away. “From the perspective you are trying to grasp? The most irrelevant minutiae of all.”

She hesitates. “Spoken from experience, I take it.”

His smile, for all its performativity, seems strained and jagged, and not just because of the flash of teeth. “Perhaps best discussed ‘over a flagon’? Pity I cannot abide ale.”

She lets her face relax lest she give anything away. He hasn’t been exactly forthcoming about his master, outside of the bare minimum, and she hasn’t pushed, as much out of general aversion as out of self-preservation. But then again, keep your enemies close—or wake up dead.

“How about rum, then?” It’s out before she can think of a more nuanced strategy.

There is the briefest hitch to his step, but he recovers quickly. “Is that an invitation, darling? Perhaps even an _overture_?”

Ryl shrugs. “We seem to have accrued an excess of the stuff, so we might as well drink it, not just toss it at goblins.”

“Well, in _that_ case,” he purrs, “I suppose I could make an exception. But only because it would contribute to the ‘collective good.’”

She chuckles, against her better judgement. “Think that Halsin character sorted out his grove?” she asks, sidestepping the strange, uncharacteristic ease of their exchange before she’s forced to stare at it a bit too closely.

He mulls it over for a few beats. “Somehow, I very much doubt it.” This time, his smirk holds its usual edge. “Speaking of _power_ ,” he adds, as if in afterthought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've taken some minor liberties with Rugan here :3 I try to stay close to what we have of the lore, but still tweak things a bit, so that it's not just a straight up retelling ;)
> 
> As always, many thanks for your kudos, your comments, and your reading eyes. I know this story isn't exactly in line with how Astarion tends to be handled in a lot of fanfic that centers on him, but some of the things that interest me most about the character are the complicated duality of the way he's written, so I'm hoping the slow pace is doing that aspect of him justice. Also, you probably figured out that I'm going to write him at Int 13, rather than Int 9—he's just more interesting to me that way ;)


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fair warning, this chapter has some light NSFW elements, and the dynamic might not be comfortable to read, psychologically speaking (it isn't for the main pairing, however). Nothing that merits a proper content warning, but just a gentle heads-up. Ryl's not in a good place, as you can probably tell, so her relationships pattern accordingly.

“Look, I don’t make the rules, so you’re barking up the wrong tree, Sylvanus help you.” 

The halfing thrusts his thumb over his shoulder, and Ryl follows his gesture with her eyes. The heart of the Druids’ Grove stands quiescent: idyllic in its twilit somnolence, the low rumble of the waterfall harmonizing with the chirping of birds and the lazy buzz of insects. Fireflies wink in the gloaming, soaring high on warm air currents.

She trades her nascent scowl for a simulacrum of serenity—barely skin-deep, but it’ll have to do. The glade is almost obscene in its newfound peacefulness, as if, even without the Rite of Thorns, or whatever Khaga and her lot were planning, the druids got exactly what they wanted in the end: a self-satisfied disengagement from the region’s troubles. 

“If you want to go breathe down Halsin’s neck, I won’t be stopping you, but don’t come crying to me if you end up with a maddened bear on your heels. Now, are we trading, or do you plan to just stand here, glaring? I’m about ready to wrap up for the day.” He sniffs in disapproval, or perhaps in half-hearted apology. “Fair warning, I have little left by way of supplies since the Tieflings went on their way.”

Arguing with the fellow is about as useful as trying to stare down a tree stump, and besides, she doesn’t have the energy. Ryl shrugs and slings her pack to the ground. At her back, the others follow suit, with an assortment of more or less demonstrative huffs.

That Halsin will not speak to them until the following morning means one of two things: either Mel has made her own arrangements with him, speaking on the entire group’s behalf and no doubt following some arcane social protocol or whatever passes for it among druid types; or the bloodsucker is correct, and the rescued healer is too busy tidying up the viper pit he left behind to rush to their assistance.

Alternatively—and the stubborn little thought is starting to fester like a neglected canker—he doesn’t have a solution to their wriggly problem either, and is just buying time.

Or, most likely, all three. Not that it matters, in the grand scheme of things, outside of time wasted.

The trader is relatively honest in his dealings, or at least not aggressively duplicitous. Still, she goes through the usual routine, using a bauble to test the waters—a little vermeil bangle, flush set with tiny amethysts. He offers a fraction of the bracelet’s value until she points out the underlying silver base peeking through the stamp. He changes tactics after that, bargaining fair over the jewelry and the gemstones, and limiting his haggling to weapons.

It’s a decent haul of coin, in the end, even after they’ve divided it, and Ryl stashes away her allotment with hollow meticulousness. Aside from healing potions and a few basic necessities, what is there to spend it on? Sure, in the unlikely event that she makes it to Baldur’s Gate again, she’ll need all the gold she can get: finding someone who doesn’t want to be found is always costly business. Not that there is any guarantee that Adir isn’t at the bottom of the sea, the fish picking his bones clean, or yet another skeleton crumbling to dust in some dank crypt. And even if, by Tymora’s fickle graces, she finds him alive—what then? 

The thought fizzles, interrupted by the cleric’s irritable “If it’s all the same to you...” 

Ryl turns. Shadowheart is watching her with a curious expression, but the second she’s caught in her scrutiny, she crosses her arms over her chest and thrusts her chin skyward in her usual display of icy displeasure. “I would rather forgo this tiefling party entirely. It’s all well for them to invite themselves over and make merry when they haven’t been crawling through caves and worse for the last few days. But I haven’t had a proper wash in a week, and the rest of you are so filthy it’s a miracle we didn’t slay those smugglers with our stench alone. Besides,” she adds with an especially haughty sniff, “some quiet would be welcome.”

“Oh, don’t be such a sourpuss.” The bloodsucker stops fussing with his soot-stained doublet and draws in the sweet evening air with obvious relish, apparently unbothered by the aforementioned stench. “I, for one, deserve a celebratory drink.”

“What you might or might not deserve is a matter of debate, istik. Just because _you_ can’t bathe doesn’t mean the rest of us have to endure this indignity.” Lae’zel narrows her eyes, scanning the grove—perhaps for the availability of a hot bath, Ryl guesses. “A warrior’s discipline requires cleanliness of mind and body.” She growls something indistinct. “On the other hand, I am famished.”

“And _I_ am pleasantly sated,” the vampire smiles, “which is all the more reason to enjoy a drink and whatever passes for entertainment around here.”

Ryl eyes the bastard warily. He’d been the first to voice his displeasure at the rustic conditions of their camp, and she had taken it as pampered bellyaching over the lack of creature comforts, but now she finds herself wondering. Whatever his living conditions had been, from the little he let slip about his master, she doubts this Cazador character was the type of benevolent tyrant to outfit his spawn with feather beds. The bloodsucker had still been trying to maintain his nobleman charade at the time, but his unease, deflected as it was, had seemed genuine enough.

“We can ask Gale to heat some water for washing up,” she says dryly, preemptively drained by the looming spiral of circular bickering. “If we’re quite done here, I suggest we head to camp, before Wyll drinks all the ale.”

~~~

The rum’s sweet bite is thick with the ripened molasses of a distant, sunny shore—sand and brine and a hint of citrus—and Ryl can taste the imperfect resonance of it: like home, but not _hers_. She brings the bottle to her lips and takes a swig, washing down what is undoubtedly going to be a terrible decision. A whole collection of them, if she’s being honest, but where has honesty ever gotten her? So here she is, another lie ready on her tongue to round off the heady sweetness.

Except, it doesn’t roll off. The merc at her side is stretched out on the ground, lean and long and at ease on the hard-packed soil in a way that makes her lips curve a little with an unbidden smile of recognition. His hands are folded under his head, and his eyes are trained at the skies, full of the tieflings’ counterfeit stars. And if that doesn’t capture _something_ about the general state of affairs, as far as her life is concerned, she doesn’t know what does.

“There’s this saying, when you join the Zhent.” He shifts, crossing his ankles and reaching for the drink in silent request. Their hands brush as she passes the rum, and his palm fits snug around hers in unnecessary contact as he picks up the bottle. His skin is shockingly hot in the chilly night air. “‘ _You are the master of your own destiny_ ,’” he recites, with a hint of bitter humor. “Nine Hells. What a royal pile of bollocks.”

Ryl chokes down a mirthless chuckle. “Got a nice ring to it, though, doesn’t it?”

He turns his head, and though his smile is easy, his eyes are murky with hidden trouble. On the other side of the camp, Volo launches into another bout of poetic excess, and the smuggler cocks an eyebrow, his cheek creasing in passing amusement. “Colorful bloke. Anyway, for some yellow-beaked tosser who wouldn’t know his arse from his best interest? Aye, I suppose it does, at that.”

She’d not intended for her night to beach on philosophical musings. Practicality had always served her well enough, practicality and some fortuitously innate ability to hold her liquor, no doubt inherited from her mother’s side. Misbegotten as it had been, she’d made a… Not a promise. A tentative plan, at best, if that. She’d meant to carry it out, too. So, when the bloodsucker had sidestepped her offer to talk and propositioned her, all sinuous grace and rote seduction—tawdry and cheap, like a shoddy counterfeit—she’d balked and demanded something back. Sincerity, maybe, or whatever passed for it. He’d met her challenge with venomous scorn, so clearly offended by her gall that Ryl had simply turned on her heel without another word, taking the offered bottle with her. And so, here she was, next to a former member of the Zhentarim, waxing existential into a scatter of illusions. Not the worst outcome, in the grand scheme of things. Then again, the merc would be gone in a day or two, while the puffed-up leech would remain, like a stubborn pebble in her boot.

She can spot his bid well enough. Maybe it’s the rum already sloshing in her belly, or maybe it’s the damned stars, like jewels in dark velvet, more real than the real thing, but she can’t help raising the stakes, now that she can see his cards. “How did that work out for you?” Too much and too soon, and perhaps it’s the jolt of lingering anger—though she’ll be damned if she allows herself to dig to the bottom of its source—that curdles the pleasant warmth in her stomach into an acid burn. 

Leather creaks as the merc rolls to his side, propping his head on his fist—a bit too close for casual banter, but she supposes the sequence is always about the same, give or take a flourish or two. “Oh, I don’t know… Decent rum, and even better company?” His voice is warm, but his gaze is no longer anchored to her face, skipping ahead of his smile in not particularly subtle invitation. “What’s a Drow lass doing in these parts, anyway?”

Ryl shrugs. “I was born on the surface, but not around ‘these parts.’ Brynnlaw, if you’re familiar.”

“Tough little town,” he grins. “Never had the occasion, but I’ve heard stories.”

Some of the tieflings’ stars wink out, dissolving with soundless pops like distant soap bubbles. “I miss the sea,” she mutters, aiming it past him, at the shifting shadows.

“Bet you taste like it.” His voice has gone husky. “Sun and salt and sweet summer blooms.”

It’s awkward and unpracticed and under better circumstances the words would make her snort and wave him off in good-natured dismissal, but there’s nothing disingenuous about the desire lurking beneath his tone or in his eyes—like the glint of sunny yellow winking through river silt. He is so close she can feel the errant strands of his hair tickling her neck. Before she can offer up her side of the banter— _why don’t you find out? —_ his lips are on hers in a hungry kiss that doesn’t bother with preambles. Nothing unpracticed about that part. He rolls over her, solid and warm against the night’s chill. “ _Hells,_ ” he groans as her thighs part to accommodate his weight. He nestles against her and chuckles into the kiss, the sound a deep, low rumble against her ribs. “Sweeter than honey, I’d wager.”

She goes through the motions, though her focus remains fuzzy and strangely distant, like glimpsing a familiar coastline through morning mists. Maybe it’s his awkward eagerness, or maybe it’s the rum, but when he lifts up on his elbows to meet her gaze, there’s no telltale sinking, none of that strange magnetic hitch she first felt with Adir, and, more recently, with the bloodsucker, Hells take him. The latter instance, at least, was another fake—contrived, a sickening imitation of the real thing, and all the more repulsive for its verisimilitude. The merc doesn’t notice. He detangles one hand from her hair and traces the curve of her hip, not waiting for her cue. His fingers snake under the hem of her coat and splay over her belly, then travel higher, as far as the taut leather will allow, skimming her skin and skipping the lines of her body’s response.

“You’re more docile than I thought you’d be, lass,” he says, and there’s a pleased sort of greed in his words, like he’s won a tricky bet against whatever idea he had of her.

The impulse to tell him off vies with the slow, somnolent indifference brought on by familiar patterns—a practiced track she’s walked before. There’s nothing inherently unpleasant about it. She has no doubt she’ll find him enjoyable enough—if only he would stop yammering.

“Apologies for interrupting this utterly underwhelming squirming in the dirt, my dear, but might I have a word?”

Ryl jerks, startled. The vampire’s tone is droll, but with an edge beneath it, and it cuts through her stupor like an ice shard, snapping her into sharp focus. The merc is on his feet in no time, and she follows suit, shaking off the last of her earlier apathy.

“Don’t you have other people to bother?” The Zhent’s retort is gruff, more irritated than abashed.

“What do you want, Astarion?” She doesn’t bother with aiming for conciliatory in either direction, and only just manages to hold back her usual moniker for him, lest this escalates into a bloodbath, one way or another. “I thought you weren’t interested in talking.”

The bloodsucker meets her eyes. Something passes between them at that moment, like the distant echo of a recognition too complicated to verbalize, let alone dissect. Through the buzz of rum, Ryl can’t quite tell whether it’s the tadpole or something else entirely.

“I’ve changed my mind,” he drawls. “I’m afraid it’s terribly important and absolutely cannot wait until the morrow.” He directs his words at the merc, impeccably courtly in his tone and all the more obvious for the provocation concealed beneath it. Then, he turns to her and extends his arm in invitation—an absurd performance of gallantry no doubt aimed to antagonize. “Shall we, darling? I’ll make sure you don’t trip over yourself in your delicate state.”

Ryl shrugs off the not particularly subtle attempt at humiliation and bares her teeth in something that might pass for a smile, but only just. “Better be worth my time. Though knowing you, it probably isn’t.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll start doing little chapter previews, since we're now firmly into long-fic territory.
> 
> Next up: a long overdue talk (and a bit more than anyone bargained for).


End file.
